Feeling Blue- Vent

I haven't posted in a long time, but read the board almost daily. difficult child ran away Saturday night after she was asked to go to her room for unsuitable behavior. She traveled about a mile and 1/2 on her bike and planned on living with the family she rode to. I get a call from the Mom and go to pick her up.

She doesn't want to live with us anymore. She wants to live with any of our neighbors and do chores for them. (Fantasy land) , but I think she believes it is that easy. She puts on a big drama show about how she is not going home with me until I tell her if she doesn't hop in the car, Dad will pick her up.

She hops right in. We go home and talk Sunday morning. I don't think she has a clue as to how dangerous it was for her to take off like she did. I think she does now, but clearly at the time she got the urge to flee, it didn't matter.

I feel manipulated, embarassed, frustrated, worn down and very resentful of difficult child right now. I have come to expect this type of behavior as normal, because this is my reality. Everything is so hard with her. I just don't have the energy right now to parent her. Dad is worn out too. Is this the best her behavior is going to ever be?

She has an EEG scheduled Thursday AM and she must go in sleep deprived so I get to be up with her from 3am until testing time at 8am.

I put a call into psychiatrist yesterday, haven't heard anything back. If she is this unstable on all these medications, what good are they doing? I really dread the thought of the upcoming school year. She will be repeating 4th grade with an IEP in place so hopefully this year will be better.

I just really wonder what she is like without all the drugs in place. I haven't seen her clean in 2 years.

First of all, adopted kids are harder to get a handle on unless we have extensive history on the birthfamilies (both). If the birthmother drank during her pregnancy, she could have passed fetal alcohol spectrum problems onto the child, even if the child does not have facial characteristics of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). This is not something psychiatrists and therapists normally look for because most mothers do not drink while pregnant and because kids affected by alcohol often look like regular kids. They just don't ACT like regular kids. Not only are they impulsive off-the-charts, but they don't learn from their mistakes. There is a "disconnect" between understanding cause and effect, which can and will affect t hem all their lives. They need constant supervision. Now...say it's not fetal affects. What else could it be?

Has this child ever been seen by a neuropsychologist to see if she is possibly suffering from neuro differences such as autistic spectrum disorder? My son was shot full of heavy drugs and they didn't help him one bit because he had Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The interventions he got after the diagnosis helped him--he is now medication free and doing great. His list of wrong diagnoses??? ADHD, ODD, bipolar. Yes, it hurt him that they were treating him for the wrong disorder. When doctors throw ten diagnoses at you plus five medications (I'd never personally allow my kid on that many medications)...sorry...that mostly means the professional doesn't know what he's dealing with so he hopes the medication sticks and works.

I hope you get a neuropsychologist evaluation for this child. The medications alone could be doing more harm than good. I've taken medications since I was 23 and medications as as likely to make you worse as better. In fact, my own experience is that they are more likely to make you worse because half the time the doctors don't even really know what they are trying to medicate. I would get another, fresh opinion and it may not be a bad idea to have the new doctor help you do a medication wash (don't try it alone). Then to the neuropsychologist to see what's really going on...

MDW
difficult child had a neuropsychologist evaluation 2 years ago while we lived in another state. Diagonosis of ADHD. Is a neuropsychologist something we need to update every so often? I am highly concerned about the amount of pills she is prescribed.

Birthmother history included drugs and drinking. No prenatal care. Sister in law is LPC and suspects some Aspergers characteristics. I am not so sure...she is very social, maintains eye contact etc... she can be overbearing socially (understanding boundaries) and usually it is her bossiness and impulsivity that she loses friends over.

She just does not think about anything she does and is very emotionally immature, like a 6 or 7 year old in an almost 11 year old body.

It sounds, with the birthmother's hx of drinking and drugs, as if you would be best off finding a specialist who deals with children who were exposed prenatally to alcohol and drugs. You may be quite surprised if you find a specialist int his area. I am sorry she is not doing better.

Hi again.
Yeah, it's not a bad idea to update the neuropsychologist evaluation. I don't think there are doctors specific to drug and alcohol exposure, but there are symptoms that could mean fetal alcohol syndrome. Believe it or not, alcohol is more damaging than even cocaine (wild I know).

She could be on the spectrum, she could have alcohol affects...NeuroPsychs are better at catching those things than Psychiatrists. Hate to say it, but most psychiatrists don't know squat about either one as they know zilch about neurology.

I'd be VERY concerned about all those drugs. Seems like whenever you bring up a symptom, they throw a new drug at her. That isn't going to help (as you can see). I'm not anti-medication, but I'm anti drugging-a-child-senseless. My guess is, due to this child's history, there is a lot of actual medical reasons why she behaves as she does. The older she gets, the clearer an evaluation is--more stuff shows up.

I'd be surprised if all she has is ADHD. Take her for another evaluation. I know it's a royal pain in the neck, but it's worth it. We had our son evaluated until he actually got a diagnosis. that improved with intervention. Until then, we figured that, being falliable, the professionals didn't know what they were treating. And that made us uncomfortable, to say the least.